A Surrey State of Affairs Read Free

succumbed to her hunger strike and bought her the accursed thing.
    When we finally arrived in central London, having been pitched into a roiling bath of malodorous humanity on the Underground, I immediately craved the safe haven of John Lewis. Sophie favored H&M, a shop that resembles a jumble sale held in a hurricane-struck brothel. She prevailed.
    A similar conflict ensued at lunchtime. I wanted to go to the tearoom in the Victoria and Albert Museum, where they do lovely open sandwiches and scones, and Sophie wanted to go to a cramped canteen with an incomprehensible menu called Wagawama. Once again, I complied, in the hope of putting her in the right mood for a nice chat, but the wretched din and clatter of our fellow diners ruled this out. I muttered into my misbegotten noodles that one should never trust boys who don’t own cuff links. Then I requested a knife and fork.
    Things did not improve after lunch. My offer to buy her a smart pair of shoes with a low, practical heel was rebuffed. My offer to buy her a cashmere cardigan was rebuffed. In fact, throughout the course of the entire day, our tastes coincided on one single item: a pair of woolen mittens, which I deemed practical, and Sophie, “retro.”
    By four P.M., I had resigned myself to a fruitless day. I shepherded Sophie toward the Underground, steering her away from a long-haired vagrant on the street corner. To my horror, she brushed me aside, ran up to the malingerer, and flung her arms around his scrawny, tan-colored neck. It transpired that the young man was Nicolas, the elder brother of her school friend Jessica and a distant cousin of Lady Zara Phillips.
    When did the upper classes forget how to dress?
       TUESDAY, JANUARY 8
    There is a circus in the village. First I saw the gaudy pink and yellow posters, then I saw the line of caravans desecrating the village green. I have told Jeffrey to make sure that all our valuables are safely locked away. When I was a little girl, circuses meant candy floss, lions, and clowns. Now, they mean Lycra-clad Latvians and a dramatic spike in local crime rates.
    “Gypsies,” Miss Hughes said to me in a loud whisper at the newsagent. “You can’t trust them.”
    I crossed my arms and shook my head. One cannot say such things, not in this day and age. It is acceptable to mistrust Latvian performance artists because they are not a racial group, but I am afraid Miss Hughes’s views border on prejudice.
    “You can’t generalize like that,” I told her firmly. “Not everyone conforms to a racial stereotype.” I smiled broadly at Mr. Rasheed, the newsagent, but he must have been too busy counting the coppers, with which Miss Hughes always, pays to notice.
    In any case, Sophie has gone to the circus, despite my admonitions that her time would be better spent practicing her French or removing her flaking nail polish.
       WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9
    Last night was the first bell-ringing practice of the year. Fortunately neither the bells nor we ringers had rusted over during the Christmas break. Everyone was there—Reginald, the vicar; Daphne, the postmistress; the indomitable Miss Hughes; Gerald, the history teacher, and his wife, Rosemary—and everyone was just the same, with the notable exception of Rosemary. She was wearing lipstick. Bright red lipstick. Her hair, which is of the curly brown variety, had been swept up into a high ponytail, lending her the appearance of a muddied poodle. There wasa strange gleam to her eye and flush to her cheek. High heels had replaced orthopedic sandals.
    When she visited the ladies during our tea break, I speculated to Miss Hughes that Rosemary had perhaps undergone a “New Year, New You” makeover. Miss Hughes said she thought it was the menopause.
       THURSDAY, JANUARY 10
    Reginald, the vicar, came round for a cup of tea this morning. He wished to talk about his son, David, a pasty-faced nineteen-year-old who drives the van of the visiting library. Poor Reginald has brought up